Month: July 2016

For years I’ve had a secret desire to make hay. My first and most enduring experience of farming has always been hay. When I was growing up the boys in my family would congregate in the summer at one or the other of my two aunts’ houses where we would pick up, stack, unstack, and deliver hundreds and hundreds of bales of hay. It was hot, dirty, exhausting work. The type of work that only the competitive spirit of very young men can make interesting – and sometimes not even then.

99% of the time the hay was alfalfa. It was irrigated and we usually had 3 cuttings a summer, each cutting produced between 3500 and 4000 square bales. It was a lot of hay. What stuck with me over the years was the smell. There’s just nothing like the smell of hay at any stage in its lifecycle. Fresh mown. Hot and earthy in the stack. Even old hay in a barn still carries the scent of the sun.

As of today I finally have hay produced from my own land. It’s just grass (as if there is such a thing as “just grass”) and I’m about to give the majority of it to a neighbor. But this morning I called in to work and went and gathered it out of the field and for now I can walk out and smell summers from long ago.

The guy who cut and baled it for us runs a mule rescue. Interesting fellow. We were talking about mules and how he came to be a mule rescuer when he asked me offhandedly if I was a believing man.

“Somewhat,” I replied.

So enigmatic. Of course he didn’t notice, just commenced to tell me that he thought his ability to handle mules was a gift from God. Maybe it is. I don’t know. But I do know that being a believing man or not is more complex than we are willing to acknowledge.

He couldn’t know that I was a believing child. That I was a questioning youth and an unbelieving young adult. He couldn’t know that I yearned to believe as I grew older and then that I was disillusioned in maturity, that I was now a tolerant unbeliever who still believes just not in the same way or the same god.

He couldn’t know that inside me (inside all of us if we are honest with ourselves) there is a constant recalibrating of the dissonance of the past and that the answer to any question dealing with belief or emotion can never be “yes” or “no”. Even when it’s yes or no.

The Oklahoma and Texas panhandles in the late 70s and early 80s were not an easy place to be a gay youth. There is still a dark undercurrent to the sunny smell of fresh mown hay for me. And even though now it’s more like something you see under glass in a museum, I remember. I remember being uncomfortable and not knowing why or how to fix it. I remember good times and fun times but always as if through a glass darkly. I remember knowing without knowing how that I would have to leave that place and those people if I wanted to survive. That I would always want to come back but I would have to return home somewhere else.

Now, when I smell and touch my own hay I can say that I do believe. I have a large belief in the smallest of things. The miracle of grass. The satisfaction of work. The loudness of silence. The strength of peace. The gift of friendship. The solace of forgiveness. The wonder of love.

Despite my best efforts the bees keep on going. I finally went back in and removed the debris, cleaned up the hive floor and put them back together. The three bars that had fallen had fallen again so I just took them out. I figure if bees can make a home in a dead tree they can deal with the extra space. If not, well, live and learn.

I feel I owe you an explanation about my long absence.

Not long after the bee-pocalypse I found myself in the emergency room on a Thursday. Turned out I had a kidney stone lodged in my ureter. (Really, who comes up with these names for body parts? It’s like they think if they sound gross enough we’ll never bother to learn about our bodies.)

Anyway, the stone had actually been moving for a few weeks before and I guess turned or lodged someway that made what I thought was just pulled muscles into something akin to labor pains – or so I’m told. If labor is anything like what I experienced I am glad to not have the gift of giving life. Just sayin’.

I was loaded up with pain meds and sent home with the admonition that my stone was large enough that it had a less than 30% chance of passing and I would probably need surgery… which couldn’t be done until the following Wednesday. I’m glad it happened that way now because I passed it the day before my pre-op appointment.

So, long story short, I was down and out for a couple of weeks and then we just got busy.

The hens are starting to lay.

I had to add another box to both bee hives.

I broke out the box blade and uncovered the mythical driveway. It really does exist.

And we just finished covering up the crappy concrete beside the house with a pea gravel patio thingy.

More than you wanted to know.

Welcome!

One guy with one husband two grown children and a yapping dog plows his way through life, occasionally looking back and thinking "Did I do that?"

I hope you enjoy your visit.

Desiderata

Go placidly amid the noise and haste,
and remember what peace there may be in silence.
As far as possible without surrender
be on good terms with all persons.
Speak your truth quietly and clearly;
and listen to others,
even the dull and the ignorant;
they too have their story.
Avoid loud and aggressive persons,
they are vexations to the spirit.
If you compare yourself with others,
you may become vain and bitter;
for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself.
Enjoy your achievements as well as your plans.

Keep interested in your own career, however humble;
it is a real possession in the changing fortunes of time.
Exercise caution in your business affairs;
for the world is full of trickery.
But let this not blind you to what virtue there is;
many persons strive for high ideals;
and everywhere life is full of heroism.

Be yourself.
Especially, do not feign affection.
Neither be cynical about love;
for in the face of all aridity and disenchantment
it is as perennial as the grass.

Take kindly the counsel of the years,
gracefully surrendering the things of youth.
Nurture strength of spirit to shield you in sudden misfortune.
But do not distress yourself with dark imaginings.
Many fears are born of fatigue and loneliness.
Beyond a wholesome discipline,
be gentle with yourself.

You are a child of the universe,
no less than the trees and the stars;
you have a right to be here.
And whether or not it is clear to you,
no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should.

Therefore be at peace with God,
whatever you conceive Him to be,
and whatever your labors and aspirations,
in the noisy confusion of life keep peace with your soul.

With all its sham, drudgery, and broken dreams,
it is still a beautiful world.
Be cheerful.
Strive to be happy.